antdude writes: This three pages Bit-tech.net article talks about "why everything is trying to be an role playing game (RPG) now" — "Twenty years ago, the idea of levelling up in a game was confined to a very specific genre: the role-playing game, whose systems were based on pen-and-paper games such as Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Today, you can still level up in an RPG such as Dragon Age, but you can also level up in far wider variety of games, from sports titles to first perspective shooter (FPS) games... The vast majority of modern games monitor, quantify and reward your skills in a way that would only have been familiar to the biggest geeks in the 1980s.

While gamers often lament a lack of innovation in games, game mechanics change as rapidly as styles do in other forms of media — so while levelling has gone mainstream, the health bar appears to be on the way out and very few games these days features lives or continues. The question then, is why is levelling up so popular?..."

Not true, they are coming up with more and more innovative ways to implement pathetic quick time events.

game mechanics change as rapidly as styles do in other forms of media -- so while levelling has gone mainstream,

Game mechanics are changing? only if you can call lack of a plot a mechanic. They seem to try to merge game genres nowadayslike FPS games always having driving elements or flying elements but I wouldn't say its changing that much.